I was barely a year old when my parents decided to move to Maadi in 1928. Perhaps it had to do with my father spending his formative years in Glasgow, Scotland. Maadi in those days was a fac-simile of an English countryside hamlet. The difference being the Nile is much bigger than the Thames.

During my childhood I did not realize we were living in one of Maadi's historic homes. Built in pure colonial style its first occupant was a senior member of the British military cast who served in Egypt and the Sudan. His title of colonel entitled our home's original owner to the honorific of "Bey".

And so it was, my house had been the home of George Gillett Hunter Bey, sometime head of the Coastguard and Frontier Administration and a brother in law of Sir Eldon Gorst, the de facto ruler of Egypt. My two elder brothers, diehard anti-colonialists who later occupied senior posts during Nasser's administration, must have laughed realizing that the wrap-around veranda where they had played during their youth, is probably where Sir Eldon and other British administrators pontificated at tea time on how best to keep Egyptians in order!

With the departure of Hunter Bey the house became home to Egypt's first woman guide-interpreter-Egyptologist, the Frenchwoman Henriette Vulliamy (a.k.a. Madame Devonshire) author of Rambles in Cairo and other similar works. Her husband, Robert L. Devonshire was the leading English lawyer in Egypt commanding much respect within the British community. When Maitre Devonshire passed away, and with her children long gone, his widow sold the house to her neighbor Mr. Stevens, a British banker, who in turn sold it to my father.

I would later espy Mrs. Devonshire on her porch during my trek to and back from the Maadi Sporting Club for she had moved into one of the eight wooden bungalows opposite the club.

I am not sure if we added historic value to our Maadi house but to his credit my father maintained its large garden in pristine condition winning many prizes for his flower beds at springtime.

Aside from producing lovely flora this house nurtured a couple of young and unruly troublemakers. I was one of them (explained later on). The other troublemaker was my oldest brother Hussein. My other brother Ali, who later became Egypt's Prime Minister and Vice-President, was outwardly the quietest keeping his cards close to his chest.

Growing up we had a variety of neighbors including a consul general from Latvia although he was actually German (Van Meeteren), a leading landowner from Upper Egypt (Khashaba Pasha) who occupied a different ministerial post in successive cabinets, a prime minister (Naguib El-Hilali Pasha) who presided over the last hours of the monarchy, a Hungarian dermatollogist (Dr Balog), and the beautiful Princess Fawzia, King Farouk's favorite sister. But being an adolescent at the time I didn't give a hoot about our neighbors. My mind was somewhere else for Maadi did not lack beautiful girls from all over the world!

Following the death of my widowed mother in 1957 we sold the house, which was then re-sold to Abdelrahman Azzam Pasha. He was the first Secretary General of the Arab League.

Though I now live a few meters away I have never been inside the house since 1957. And athough the house itself is in mint condition, it saddens me to see how everything around it deteriorated.

1950s: party at the villa